Document(s) 11 of 21

The L-20 project was always operationally oriented. The consistent motivating factor was a desire to make changes in an international situation which most project participants considered to be increasingly dysfunctional, if not dangerous. To re-state that underlying premise, the world-scale problems facing the global community are outstripping the ability of existing institutions (in many cases, more than 50 years old) to manage them effectively. Moreover, the most important problems no longer fit tidily into Ministerial mandates, issues are increasingly complex and multi-dimensional, and the response-time permitted to governments is shrinking annually. The L-20 approach is based on the conviction that devising ways for government leaders to intervene collectively and personally will make a significant difference in how those issues are addressed and resolved.

As previously stated, project organizers brought together a mix of practitioners, university-based experts and representatives of civil society to clear away the intellectual undergrowth and seek agreement on how and when to proceed with the idea originally given public shape by Paul Martin. During the initial organizing meetings and the subsequent workshop series, participants considered not just possible L-20 configurations and agenda items but also the elements which might be needed to launch the initiative.

The original Smith/Carin paper envisaged two scenarios for initiating an L-20. The first would involve having the sitting G-8 chair invite the G-20 Finance Ministers group to meet at the leaders’ level for a full day as part of a standard G-8 meeting. The second would see a group of countries from inside and outside the G-8 agree to “found” an L-20 independent of the G-8. The composition of this L-20 would not necessarily mirror the G-20 membership, although that might be the simplest way to skirt a dispute over who was entitled to a seat at the table. The paper went on to note that, if the L-20 was to meet more than once, there would be a need for an early harvest of success.¹

At the Waterloo meeting in October 2003, the view seemed to be that an incremental approach should be taken, with the G-8 being expanded by the addition of China, India and Brazil.² Several months later at Bellagio, however, the sense was that the expansion of the G-8 to an L-20 should be even slower, largely because there seemed to be no crisis on the horizon which might justify the establishment of a new, larger group of leaders.³

At the Ottawa launch meeting in February 2004, there was an extended debate between the proponents of moving straight to an L-20 and those who felt that incremental growth based on the G-8 was more practical.⁴ There was also a related discussion about whether the first L-20 meeting should be planned as a “one-off” event or whether a series of L-20 meetings should be assumed. The conclusion seemed to be that the approach should be event-driven rather than calendar-driven, to take advantage of circumstances as they arose.

At the stocktaking meeting in Ottawa a year later, one such opportunity was actively contemplated. The suggestion was made that the first L-20 meeting should be a low-key affair scheduled around the UN summit in September 2005. The notion was that the agenda should focus on UN reform plus disaster preparedness and a health question (perhaps supplemented by a breaking issue if one was current). This meeting would be informal and minimalist, albeit with a pre-arranged agenda. Despite this target of opportunity in terms of timing, most participants saw the process as driving the topic, not the other way around. In other words, L-20 supporters should not wait for a crisis and then build a body to address it.⁵

By the end of the workshop series, this view had been adjusted somewhat, although the emphasis on strategic timing remained strong. At the Princeton meeting on global public goods in February 2006, participants stressed the need to have the appropriate homework done so that the L-20 approach could be mobilized in the event of a future crisis.⁶ Similarly, the next month at Maastricht, participants thought that the key was to have preparatory work available to pull from the inventory and capture the moment.⁷ So, even though it remained difficult to gauge the precise timing of an L-20 launch (in the event, for example, the UN Summit passed without an L-20 side-bar meeting), the need still seemed clear, and the investment devoted to crafting the elements to be put in place for a successful launch still seemed worthwhile.

Overall, two models for initiating the run-up to the first L-20 meeting emerged from the workshops.

Option 1 – Managing a Crisis

This first model assumed that convincing a collection of 20 or so heads of government that they should add yet another summit meeting to their already crowded calendars simply because of a concern over the state of international decision-making is probably a non-starter. Unless there is a very pressing and immediate reason, the level of interest will be low.

Project participants pointed out that it took the oil crisis following the October 1973 Yom Kippur war and the subsequent recession to convince Finance Ministers from the United States, Germany, Britain, France and later Japan to meet periodically to review international economic and financial developments.⁸ The next year, French President Valery Giscard-d’Estaing proposed that the “Five” meet at head of state/government level, and the first meeting of what became the G-8 took place at Rambouillet in November 1975.⁹ Not dissimilarly, as already described, the G-20 Finance Ministers’ group came into existence on the heels of a series of financial crises around the world. The record seems fairly clear that significant institution-building tends to be a response to major events or threats (certainly this was the case in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War).

This evaluation, therefore, suggests that the most likely set of circumstances under which an attempt to convene an initial L-20 meeting would succeed would be in response to a development which has global dimensions and potentially significant economic or social impact. From the beginning of the project, the subject area which seemed to fit most comfortably into this category was health. And, under this general heading, concerns about the ways in which national and international authorities dealt with infectious diseases struck an especially resonant chord.

In his scenario piece prepared for the February 2004 launch meeting, Tim Evans, Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization, outlined three possible areas of L-20 engagement: country or regional health crises; neglected global health priorities; and leadership lacunae. Under the second heading he listed preparedness for infectious epidemics.¹⁰ Health emerged from the launch meeting as a probable L-20 agenda item.¹¹ On this basis, the San Jose workshop in November 2004 examined global infectious diseases and adjudged them a very promising topic for leaders to discuss (although participants wanted a balance to be struck between the focus on infectious disease and the broader public health approach to addressing them).¹² The February 2005 stocktaking meeting confirmed that the emphasis should be on preventing and/or managing pandemics.¹³

By the time of the May 2005 workshop in Geneva specifically dealing with pandemics, the focus had been sharpened and the level of alarm ratcheted up. The world had undergone the alarums associated with the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, as the disease originated in Asia and quickly spread to the West, causing hospitals to be quarantined in places as normally “safe” as Toronto. In addition, the threat of avian flu now loomed large.

The potential economic impact of a more serious influenza outbreak was staggering. One of the background papers for the Geneva meeting estimated that even a relatively “minor” influenza pandemic, infecting just 0.5–1.0% of the world population (up to 65 million people), would probably see economic losses run to $1 to 2 trillion per year over a period of 2–3 years (based on current GDP data). This would represent some 5–6% of world GDP. The authors added that even a “small” Asian flu pandemic could lead to losses in Asia’s annual GDP of $150– 200 billion.¹⁴

The Geneva workshop concluded that, in general, authorities around the world were unprepared – there were huge gaps in surveillance activities, vaccine stocks were inadequate, and there were drastic medical personnel shortages. Specifically with respect to the avian flu, where the concern centred on the movement of disease from an animal to a human host, participants confirmed that there were no “bridges” between public health and agricultural veterinarian experts, and that veterinarians tended not to be included in surveillance systems.¹⁵

So it would seem on the merits of the substance that at least one of the agenda items for an initial L-20 meeting should be “pandemics”, or perhaps more precisely “avian flu”. Moreover, the timing seemed right, with political pressure building on leaders to be seen to be fully engaged with the (apparently) imminent threat of epidemic disease. And even the occasion for an informal first attempt was presenting itself, with all the world leaders scheduled to travel to New York in September for the United Nations’ World Summit. Surely, around the margins of this event, the embryonic L-20 could stir into life.

The story of why this did not occur bears telling, because it illustrates some of the practical difficulties of making change in international practice (especially from the “outside”).

The May 2005 workshop in Geneva was already unusual in terms of who was in the room. In addition to senior officials from the World Health Organization (WHO), a senior official from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) attended. This was a real accomplishment because WHO and FAO officials rarely met, although, to deal with avian flu, a high degree of coordination between officials dealing with animal and human health was clearly called for. Also present were an American Assistant Secretary of Health plus his staff, a senior official from the Indian Council for Medical Research, two senior representatives from the Chinese health ministry (plus the number two from their Geneva mission), and one of the Canada’s Assistant Deputy Ministers of Health. This was a group which, in theory, could make things happen.

At the conclusion of the Geneva workshop, it was agreed that Canada and WHO would jointly draft a paper on the state of global preparedness to deal with the avian flu. The paper would be circulated internationally. The WHO/Canada paper would include options, recommendations and a number of concrete actions which leaders could take. Assuming broad acceptance, the paper might serve as the basis for a breakfast meeting of twenty leaders on the margins of the September UN World Summit in New York. At this stage, the non-governmental organizers of the Geneva meeting, CFGS and CIGI, withdrew.

Canadian authorities considered this proposal, which at one point included a suggestion from WHO that Canada demonstrate its commitment by publicly committing a significant sum to the global effort. At the same time, officials in international organizations and national governments (including Canada’s) continued their consultations on how best to respond to the avian flu threat.

In the end, other standard intergovernmental processes produced sufficient momentum that the L-20 alternative was not seen to be necessary. This, in turn, meant that, from the perspective of the L-20 project, the appropriateness of avian flu as a potential initial agenda item obviously fell away, since the most critical criterion confirmed throughout the workshop discussions was that issues should not be brought to leaders which could be resolved successfully elsewhere.

Instead, on September 14, 2005, in the course of an address to the UN Summit, President Bush announced an “International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza”, which sought to pull together the somewhat scattered initiatives in this field. The next day, Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, chaired a press conference held to elaborate on the various aspects of the Partnership. Reflecting its role in strongly encouraging international coordination, Canada was prominently represented at the event by David Malone, Assistant Deputy Minister for Global Affairs in the Department of Foreign Affairs. He announced that Canada would host a ministerial meeting within the month to discuss the risks of an avian flu epidemic.

On October 24–25, 2005, the Government of Canada duly hosted this meeting, with Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh as the Chair.¹⁶ The meeting included delegations from thirty countries and representatives of nine international organizations (the heads of the WHO, the FAO and the World Organization of Animal Health all attended). The outcome was a comprehensive “Ottawa Statement” which catalogued “…key policy priorities and actions that must guide international efforts to prevent, prepare for, and respond to an influenza pandemic”.¹⁷ Prime Minister Martin welcomed the delegates, noting that this was the first time that a global gathering of political and technical leaders had been convened to discuss the avian flu threat at the Ministerial level. He went on to state that

… this gathering reflects, in my view, the imperative for a new multilateralism, the collaboration of developed and developing countries with a common interest, to work together toward urgent goals which no one nation can accomplish alone.¹⁸

So the specific L-20 mechanism may not have been utilized, but the underlying requirement for effective international coordination which motivated the L-20 approach in the first place was met through other means.

The initiative begun in May in Geneva was only one of many efforts at this time precipitated by the evident and growing avian flu threat. It may not have led to a meeting of world leaders, but it contributed materially to the collective international response to a new and important problem (it was especially useful in bringing together senior WHO and FAO officials at a critical juncture). From that point on, however, the established links among national officials were always going to be decisive in securing government decisions and driving government action.¹⁹

The episode points to the limitations of so-called “track two” exercises such as the L-20 project. Traditional, or “track one”, diplomatic initiatives assume an encounter between accredited representatives of sovereign states of the sort which has been practiced by the members of the international community for centuries. It is in this, the formal arena, such as the United Nations General Assembly, where official emissaries engage one another on behalf of their respective states.

Track two diplomacy, on the other hand, has no official standing. While participants in track two initiatives may be government officials, they do not represent any state or government and thus engage one another in their personal capacities. Any conclusions or recommendations emerging from such meetings are in no way binding upon governments, nor are the proceedings of the meetings representative of the position of any state. Governments are, therefore, in the happy position of being able to dismiss conclusions or recommendations they do not like, but free to adopt anything useful which may transpire. Track two diplomacy fills the holes in the long road of formal dialogue by providing a forum for discourse between players and on issues that simply cannot take place at the formal level, but which are needed to advance co-operation and mutual understanding.²⁰

A major challenge for the non-governmental sponsors of track two initiatives is the calculation of when and how to inject their findings and views into the “official” debate over a given issue. In the case of the aftermath of the Geneva workshop, CFGS and CIGI had established effective connections among a broad range of academics, experts, and national and international officials. Moreover, the timing of the workshop was propitious because public pressure for concrete action was rising. In the end, however, there was no guarantee that the workshop’s conclusions would prompt an immediate positive response from government (especially when the issue was pressing and governments were jockeying for position to demonstrate leadership). And, indeed, no L-20 meeting materialized. On the other hand, the ideas from the workshop gained more currency and began to be accepted as part of the standard international discourse on global decision-making. In the business of influencing governments (as in many other human activities), the long view is often the most realistic.

To complete the picture of the possible first model for an L-20 launch, one or two other potential agenda items surfaced in the course of the workshop series. The first of these was the general area of weapons of mass destruction and, particularly, measures to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The second was climate change, reframed to emphasize energy security. Both these topics were very current and conceivably might appeal to a broad range of countries (developed and developing) as being critical. In addition, both (plus pandemics, for that matter) were issues which the U.S. would consider to be priorities.²¹ In the end, however, participants gravitated towards infectious disease as the most likely trigger for an initial L-20 meeting.

Option 2 – Building a Package

The second model for prompting an L-20 start-up was based on President Eisenhower’s dictum – “if a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it”. Rather than focusing attention on a single agenda item, the approach would be to generate a package of issues for the leaders to deal with. An individual issue might have a zero-sum outcome with outright winners and losers, but the combination of a variety of issues might produce a collection of results, some aspect of which each leader could point to as a “win”. The elements of the package would still depend on circumstances to a degree, but the intention would be deliberately to develop a balance within the suite of measures which would broaden its political appeal.

When workshop participants first started talking about packages, for the most part they were referring to collections of decisions, sometimes quite lengthy, which leaders might take within a given field (for example, agricultural trade, health, climate change, safe drinking water, energy security, or science and technology). As the series went on, participants began discussing the links between issue areas, such as the obvious connection between health and safe drinking water and sanitation.²² The security dimension of various subjects came up, notably with respect to health matters (specifically the bioterrorism/infectious disease link).²³ This connection was usually made in the context of a discussion of how best to engage the United States.²⁴

In fact, from the beginning of the project, the notion had been floated of a “grand bargain” across issues which would bring the US back into the tent.25 The issues which might make up the elements of the bargain varied over time as the project moved ahead. In 2003, the speculation was that the combination of the financial area (IMF reform), trade (the Doha Round), and environment might be attractive.²⁶ By 2004, the favoured trio was health, a post-Kyoto climate change regime and water.²⁷ At the February 2005 stocktaking meeting, looking ahead to the September UN World Summit, as mentioned earlier, participants thought that an L-20 timed to coincide with that event in New York might focus on UN reform, disaster response or health, plus whatever breaking issue might surface.²⁸

By the time of the Princeton workshop on financing global public goods (February 2006), the conversation had taken on a decidedly real politik tone, perhaps reflecting the failure of the UN Summit, among other discouraging developments. At that session, there was discussion of re-orienting the agenda of a first L-20 meeting to so as to be congruent with US objectives. The argument was made that only if the Americans saw their national interests directly in play would they be at all interested in coming to the table.²⁹ Accordingly, one suggested agenda formulation included the three issues: global over-fishing, climate change (slanted towards energy security), and collaboration on Iraq reconstruction.³⁰ Later in the workshop, a slightly more generalized approach was floated: to include in the package one “hot button” issue – the avian flu; one issue demonstrating the leaders’ ability to negotiate successfully – a new emissions regime or a breakthrough on agricultural subsidies; and one activity involving long-term cooperation – improvement in the quality of migration statistics.³¹

The very variety of these putative packages reflected a lack of agreement, even in the abstract, and the size and complexity of the suggested issue areas called into question the practicality of trying to bring three pots to a boil simultaneously. The participants in the last workshop, in Washington, DC in May 2006 were fairly hard-eyed about the prospects for a “grand bargain”, deeming it elusive and unlikely. One of the more experienced practitioners at the table pointed to the reality that, in any event, issues shifted constantly and consequently agendas would have to be pulled together late in the game.³²

Perhaps instructively, however, that individual did not then go on to state that the L-20 approach, or indeed the launch model of a “grand bargain/package deal”, should be abandoned. On the contrary, he urged that supporters of the idea work to find a Northern and a Southern leader to act as sponsors, develop materials on key issues so that they were decision-ready, schedule the meeting, and get on with it. In his view, the need for an L-20 or some version of it was manifest – it was the political will which was, for the moment, missing.

Endnotes

¹ Barry Carin, Gordon Smith, Making Change Happen at the Global Level. L-20 project paper, 2003, http://www.l20.org/ pp. 29–30.

² Waterloo, p. 6.

³ Bellagio, p. 4.

⁴ Ottawa I, p. 13.

⁵ Ottawa II, p. 2.

⁶ Princeton II, p. 6.

⁷ Maastricht, p. 8.

⁸ The gathering became known as the “Library Group” because its first meeting occurred in the White House Library.

⁹ For a brief account of the origins of the G-7/8, see Peter I. Hajnal, The G-7 and its Documents. Government Information in Canada, 1:.3.3, 1995, retrieved June 20, 2006 from http://www.usask.ca/library/gic/v1m3/hajnal/hajnal.html.

¹⁰ Tim Evans, The G-20 and Global Public Health. L-20 project paper, 2004, http://www.l20.org/ p. 4.

¹¹ Ottawa I, pp. 7, 24.

¹² San Jose, p. 8.

¹³ Ottawa II, pp. 3, 5.

¹⁴ Vanessa Rossi, John Walker, Assessing the Economic Impact and Costs of Flu Pandemics Originating in Asia. L-20 project paper, 2005, http://www.l20.org/, p. 21.

¹⁵ Geneva, p. 1.

¹⁶ See press release retrieved June 26, 2006 at http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/intactiv/pandem-flu/index-eng.php

¹⁷Text retrieved June 26, 2006 from http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/nr-cp/2005/2005_fin-eng.php

¹⁸ Text retrieved August 4, 2006 from http://www.pco-bcp.gc.ca/index.asp?lang=eng

¹⁹ The account of the follow-up to the Geneva workshop is based on personal interviews with workshop organizers and senior WHO and Canadian officials.

²⁰ These descriptions of track one and two diplomacy are taken from material generated as part of the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law’s project on “Managing Potential Conflict in the South China Sea”. Text retrieved June 14, 2006 from http://faculty.law.ubc.ca/scs/track2.htm

²¹ Ottawa II, p. 1.

²² Alexandria, p. 8.

²³ San Jose, p. 4.

²⁴ Although in the Berlin workshop on fragile states, there was general agreement that the social agenda should definitely not be “securitized”. Berlin, p. 2.

²⁵ Carin and Smith, op cit., p. 21.

²⁶ Carin and Smith, op cit., p. 31.

²⁷ Ottawa I, pp. 24–25.

²⁸ Ottawa II, p. 5.

²⁹ Princeton II, p. 4.

³⁰ Princeton II, p. 5.

³¹ Princeton II, p. 6.

³² Washington, p. 6.

Document(s) 11 of 21